The Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) is racing against time to fix deficiencies by November end after the Medical Council of India’s (MCI) recommendation to the central government against renewal of permission for its third batch of MBBS course.

Set up as the third government medical college of the state in 2016, the GDMC has less than a month’s time on hand to fulfil the long list of gaps for ensuring admissions for the academic year 2018-19.

Earlier this year, an MCI assessment had come up with a 14-point deficiency report including 25% deficiency of faculty at the GDMC, 14% shortage of resident doctors and lack of teaching beds against requirement.

It had also pointed out that some departments were not functional, minor procedure room not available for ophthalmology OPD, the distance between beds in wards was less than 1.5 meters and hospital lecture theatre not available among other deficits.

Based on the above, the Executive Committee of the MCI decided to “recommend to the central government not to renew the permission for admission of 3rd batch of 150 MBBS students” at the college.

Later, through a letter dated November 1, a copy of which is with HT, the MCI asked the GDMC to submit the “detailed point-wise compliance with the documentary evidence in respect of the rectification of deficiencies pointed out within one month to the Council office”.

All deficiencies, thus, have to be rectified till November 30 and a compliance fee of ₹3 lakh also has to be submitted till then.

GDMC principal Dr Pradeep Bharti Gupta said the college was working in full swing to ensure that all the deficiencies were rectified before the deadline.

“Proposal has been sent to higher officials for posting of faculty and we are trying to complete the other deficiencies at the earliest. We are hopeful that we will get the MCI go-ahead for admissions (to be made for the 3rd batch in August 2018),” he told HT.

Officials of the medical education department said that “two-pronged efforts” were being made to rectify the deficiencies.

“There are two main points - faculty deficit and shortage of budget. For faculty, fresh recruitments are being made and we are also getting excess faculty from other medical colleges transferred to GDMC. As for budget, we have submitted a proposal for R 15 crore to the government for completing the remaining construction/infrastructure works so that the MCI permission can be obtained on time,” Ashutosh Sayana, director (medical education) told HT.

GDMC was a relatively “new medical college” and hence the department was working in a phase-wise manner to tide over the teething troubles, he added.

Made at a cost of over ₹402 crore, the GDMC - where the second batch was admitted this year - had taken up number of government seats for medical aspirants in the state from 200 to 350.

Incidentally, the state government had to struggle a lot for more than a year to get the MCI’s go-ahead before starting the college.